Can we live in mobile home on site while building house?

C

CMMDAM

New Member
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We are selling our home. We should have about 100k equity once sold. We are considering buying a site with full planning granted and no local needs. The house is modest not a sprawling pad by any means. Can we put a mobile on site while we build? Also, if we didn’t intend to break ground for approx 6 months (we want to save what we would have been paying on our mortgage) can we do so? Or do council expect you to start the build immediately upon moving into the mobile.
If it helps, septic tank well and electricity on site already. (There is an old residence on the site currently)
 
You are meant to apply for planning permission for the mobile but not sure how many do! Depends how cranky your local council is, have you applied for planning permission for the house already or are you just renovating what is there?
 
Planning is already fully granted for the site. So it has a number of years before it runs out. It’s a three bed bungalow, kitchen, living room. So we are hoping to build for about 300k mortgage and are hoping we can save for approximately 6 months before work starts to have some contingency there too.
Totally new to self building so any or all advise is welcomed.
We would like to move from an estate but housing stock in the countryside is hard to come by. Building seems like it might work for us.
 
Check with your local planners, they can allow temporary use of a mobile for the duration of construction for which planning has been granted.

Building might be for you if you have skills that can save you on labour or have friends or family in the trade. Building costs are very high at the moment and it can be difficult to get the trades to show up to small projects with many of them working in the towns and cities for bigger money. Existing houses are selling for less than they would cost to build, some significantly so. Just do your homework before you commit.
 
I had assumed that you could plonk a mobile down & keep it there as long as it had wheels on it as that makes it an impermenant/mobile structure. Nice idea to save on rent mortgage- I like your thinking.
Learned something new today.

Building is not a small task & it comes with plenty of risks outside your control. Not for me, I just don't have the appetite for it but I wish you well with the build & move.
 
Horatio said:
I had assumed that you could plonk a mobile down & keep it there as long as it had wheels on it as that makes it an impermenant/mobile structure.
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Once you get into the realms of people sleeping in it that all changes, planning is generally required then. Even with no one ever sleeping in them, you can only park a mobile home or caravan on your property for up to 9 months without planning.
 
Leo said:
Once you get into the realms of people sleeping in it that all changes, planning is generally required then. Even with no one ever sleeping in them, you can only park a mobile home or caravan on your property for up to 9 months without planning.
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Source?

Someone I know very well acquired and moved into a mobile home 2 years ago without planning and nobody appears to have batted an eyelid.
 
T McGibney said:
Source?

Someone I know very well acquired and moved into a mobile home 2 years ago without planning and nobody appears to have batted an eyelid.
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Requirements for planning are outlined in the planning acts. caravans etc.. The limits are set out under Exempted Development.

Just because any of us know someone doing something is not a good basis on which to judge legality. I know a guy who lived in one in Wicklow for a good few years, he fought it for a couple of years but ended up paying fines and restitution costs when the LA eventually came after him.
 
T McGibney said:
A word search for "mobile home" within that link yielded nothing for me.
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This?
 
T McGibney said:
This link refers specifically to "the placing of a mobile home on lands in association with farming and animal husbandry". Irrelevant to the OP's query.
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Perhaps have a read of the full judgement, the inference is pretty clear.

T McGibney said:
No legislative references in this link.
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Defined elsewhere under 'temporary dwellings', but we're specifically talking planning here and exempted development. By definition anything not referenced is not exempt.
 
Leo said:
Perhaps have a read of the full judgement, the inference is pretty clear.
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Where, specifically?
Leo said:
Defined elsewhere under 'temporary dwellings', but we're specifically talking planning here and exempted development. By definition anything not referenced is not exempt.
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Again you haven't demonstrated this, and the case you cited ("association with farming and animal husbandry") was irrelevant to the OP's case.
 
T McGibney said:
Where, specifically?
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It's all there in plain English!

T McGibney said:
Again you haven't demonstrated this, and the case you cited ("association with farming and animal husbandry") was irrelevant to the OP's case.
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Again, perhaps have another read. I mean the summary finding is in pretty simple terms, I'm not sure what particularly you don't understand about:

The placing of the existing mobile home on the lands is development and not exempted development
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The reference the the animal husbandry within that case is relevant in so far as the dismissal of the applicant's attempt to use further arguments in favour of the placement of a mobile being exempted development under grounds of agricultural use. Put even more simply, the ruling stated the placement of a mobile home constituted a development, and so requires planning permission. Further, the placement of a mobile home on lands used for animal husbandry does not allow it to fall within the expanded exemptions available on such land.
 
I know plenty of these cases. Know one man lived in a mobile home for decades, know of a caravan where an elderly couple who wouldn't divorce decided himself was going to live on the driveway so they remained 'fully' married for the community. Off the top of my head I recall often seeing traveller caravans at the side of the road near a roundabout in Limerick or maybe it was Clare.

If I were the OP avoiding going next nor near planning and playing dumb would be my advice.

Oddly in relation to planning yesterday we had an argument with a city council who wanted a S5 exemption (from themselves in their planning dept For €X) and we said we didn't need it because what we were planning was exempt (no change or use or no building, only renovation of existing) and then the person dropped the matter altogether.

OP should build in the Spring. Winter is a bad time to start. So 6 months is just about right.
 
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